Coffin Nails
by AutumnMobile12
Summary: "Didn't know vampires snored." She graced him with an annoyed stare. "I can't snore, Captain. I don't even breathe." -Companion Piece to Silver Needles.


Coffin Nails

Seras awoke in the windowless soldiers' lounge, arm thrown across her forehead and the smell of stale cigarette ash and spilled beer in her nose. She furrowed her brow and opened her eyes to the underside of a ceiling stained from years upon years of smoking. Looking at it now, it was a lifeless grey, and even her inhuman vision failed to spot any places where the presumably white paint had not been damaged. Seras snorted at the smell and yawned, silently berating herself for falling asleep in here again. She hadn't meant to, especially now that Hellsing had replenished its manpower and the area was once again in use by soldiers, but in recent weeks she had found the old sofa was preferable to her coffin. As long as she laid down a blanket on the cushions, ignored the smell, and didn't think too hard about the old coffee and ash stains. It was still squashy and comfortable, and it was easy for her to fall asleep while reading there.

And at night, it was still a private space for her to unwind until the Wild Geese adjusted to their new nocturnal hours.

"Didn't know vampires snored."

Seras bolted upright and stared at her unforseen instruder. Captain Bernadotte was sitting at the old card table behind the sofa, intently studying what looked like yesterday's paper. How the hell had she not heard him earlier? The man's lungs sounded like a broken bassoon and he had a heartrate that gave her anxiety just listening to it. She graced him with an annoyed stare. "I can't snore. I don't even breathe."

He shrugged. "You snore."

Seras rolled her eyes. _ "Bonsoir, Capitaine. Ça va?"_

"_Je vais bien, ma chére_" he said, folding up the paper and tossing it aside where it slipped off the table and fell with a rustle onto the floor. "_Et toi?_"

"_Comme ci comme ça,_" She rocked her head from side to side until her neck popped. "Is the sun down?"

"_Oui._"

She nodded and stood up, making her way to the kitchenette across the lounge. "_Je veux du café. En voulez-vous?_"

Bernadotte raised an eyebrow behind her. "Can you drink coffee?"

"I can, actually," she answered, opening a cupboard and pulling down filters and, by the weight of it, the half-empty cannister. "You thought I only drank blood?"

"_Tu es un vampire, non?_"

He had her there. Seras clicked her tongue as she measured out the coffee grounds and water, ignoring the Frenchman's lone green eye as he watched her work. Wordlessly, she set the carafe in place and switched the machine on, waited a moment to making sure it was working—it was a finicky contraption—before she made her way back to the sofa and sat down to wait.

"There's something I don't quite understand, chére," the captain's voice said behind her.

"What is it?"

"I read part of Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ once, and I remember the vampires in that book being depicted as immoral demons or temptresses. Alucard seems to fit the bill, but you…you seem a little—"

"Naïve?"

"I was going to say innocent," he paused a moment to yawn, then added, "Are all female vampires like you?"

"I wouldn't know," she murmured. "I've never met another female." _Though your description of the males seems pretty accurate based on the ones I've met so far._ She too had wondered about the shameless and sultry nature of Lucy Westenra and Dracula's Brides, especially since Walter had told her the book had been based on true events. In life, Lucy had been a pure and good-natured soul. In death, she'd somehow become a promiscuous and sensual figure, not hesitating to attempt preying on the men hunting her. Had it been an embellishment to illustrate the evil disposition of vampires? Or is that what would've happened if she'd taken her master's blood that night in the Irish hospital? Would she have fully shed her human self and all the sense of morality and shame that came with it? Would she be as heartless as him?

Walter would know, she supposed, but she'd been too embarrassed to ask the old man, and asking Alucard himself was out of the question.

Sighing, the young woman turned to the Frenchman, who'd lit up a fresh cigarette and was exhaling a toxic cloud that took a few long moments to disperse. Seras wrinkled her nose at the acrid stench but made no comment. "You said you've only read part of _Dracula._ Why didn't you finish?"

She expected he would say he'd gotten bored of it and stopped reading. He didn't really strike her as a big reader, except if it was the fine print of a contract. He'd been surprisingly thorough when drawing up his company's terms of service with Sir Integra when they'd first arrived. However, the answer he gave to her question both surprised and puzzled her, "Something about it disturbed me. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a lot of fucked up things in this line of work, but _Dracula_…" He took another drag on his cigarette. "That scene in the beginning when what's his name…Harker, right? When Harker sees the Count slither down the castle wall? That scared the ever-living fuck out of me and I've never been able to explain why. Still does. Just thinking about it gives me…ugh…" He snapped his fingers in frustration. "_Comment dites-vous des frissons?_"

Seras frowned. "Chills? Goosebumps?"

"There we go,_ merci._ I still get goosebumps thinking about, and it really shouldn't have scared me as much as it did, you know."

Seras couldn't help but agree. Sure, that scene had always been creepy to read, but there were far scarier things in the book, weren't there? The part where the wolf came into the Westenra home, when van Hellsing and company confronted the vampire Lucy or the part that had fueled so many of her childhood nightmares when Dracula himself attacked Mina and made her Undead. Why would that part of the story bother him so, particularly when even he himself said he'd seen even more terrible things in reality?

"Anyway, I stopped reading it after Harker's journal ended. Besides, everyone knows how the story ends." He grinned at her. "Dracula dies, the heroes save the day, happily ever after."

Seras raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Except for Quincey Morris, Lucy Westenra, her mother, Renfield, and a couple others who didn't make it."

That made him laugh. "_Merde_, all right. Except for Quincey Morris, Lucy Westenra, her mother, Renfield, and a couple others who didn't make it, zhey all lived happily ever after. Satisfied?"

"Close enough." She shrugged.

"Did you get that macabre disposition before or after you _cassé sa pipe_?"

Seras couldn't help but frown at this question. "Before or after I what?"

The captain grimaced. "It means…"

"Break the pipe?" Had she mistranslated that? What pipe?

"Forget it, _chére_." Bernadotte waved a dismissive hand and shook his head. "Now that my head's caught up with my mouth, it was a stupid thing to say. Don't worry about it."

"You should let your head catch up with your mouth before you open it more often."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Now you sound like my mother."

"Oh, good, I was afraid of sounding like mine."

That too made him laugh, and Seras found herself joining in, a smile stretched across her pale face. She was smiling more often these days. Laughing, too. Then a subtle beeping drew their attention to the counter across the room. "Coffee sounds about done." Bernadotte said as he stood up. Seras made to follow him, but he waved her off. "_Non_, stay there. I'll get it."

So she remained on the sofa, following the captain's movements as he pulled two mugs from the cabinet and poured steaming coffee. "Sugar? Cream?"

"Black."

He joined her on the sofa a moment later, passing her one of the steaming mugs as he drank from his own. Seras sipped at the beverage and would have sighed at the comforting warmth it brought to her undead body had she been able to. The brew didn't even taste that good, as it was a cheap, wholesale brand she and her fellow officers used to drink everyday on the job, but in her current state, she found that, like tea, it was more the _feeling_ of hot coffee that affected her. Similarly, Bernadotte didn't seem to notice the foul flavor, though she suspected that was due to him being a heavy smoker. _That caffeine can't be good for him either._ How long would it be before his heart rate sped up?

"I've been meaning to ask you, _chére_," Bernadotte said between sips. "Have we met somewhere before?"

Seras frowned. "_Quoi?_"

"I feel like we've met already," he continued thoughtfully, leaning forward on his knees and staring at the floor. "You know that feeling you get when you revisit your hometown after a long time away. It's like that."

"Hmm….I don't think we've met." Seras considered it. "I mean, I've only been abroad a few times in my life, but only just across the Channel. I went to Berlin once while I was in secondary. Why do you think we've met?"

"_Je ne sais pas._" He shrugged. "Maybe you remind me of someone."

"That's fair." _I like him,_ Seras realized and was startled by the sudden thought. She realized she'd liked him since he figured out she was fluent in French and yet kept it to himself while his men were none the wiser, gabbing away in trivial conversation, peppered here and there with what she assumed were lewd remarks about her physique and what they could do about it. Needless to say, her vocabulary had grown extensively these past few weeks. She tolerated these vulgar comments though, consoling herself with the anticipated mortification at least some of them would feel when they finally caught on to her unstanding every damn word they'd ever said about her.

Beyond that, however, Seras found she had to admire Bernadotte for his ability as a soldier and a commander, and for his loyalty. He was lecherous to a fault, smoked like a chimney, and possessed the most perverse sense of humor she'd ever known, but she liked him. God help her.

And maybe…in some distant corner of her mind, maybe he was familiar to her to in some homecoming way, too. And she didn't know why.

The captain raised his mug. "_C'est un bon café, au fait._"

"_Merci, monsieur._"

"You definitely snore, _chére_."

"No, what you heard was probably that tin can rattling in your chest." She took a drink and licked her lips. "You should stop smoking. It's bad for you. Not to mention it stinks."

"Heh."

-0-0-0-

Author's Notes: Not much explanation at this one. Speculate at will.

I do not own Hellsing.


End file.
